An Avowed Cynic Has Second Thoughts

Another Conference Update:

Recap: Day 1 - morning. Good, encouraging, didn't really walk away with a whole lot, but I was encouraged. Day 1 - evening. I was put off by the approach used to discuss postmodernisim, and in fact went this evening comnemplating what I could write further on that topic. I was ill prepared for what would soon waylay me.

Tonight's topic was one I have heard before, from the passage to the application. I was fully prepared to sit and flip through the same points, and move on. The sermon was on Peter getting out of the boat to come to Jesus as he walked on the water.

I must admit, my faith is not where it once was. Beset by disappointment and failure in seemingly every path I try, I have consciously tried to push hope from my mind. Hope in things promised in scripture, like eternal life maybe. But hope in my seemingly unspiritual struggles... hope truly seemed just another four-letter word for dream-waiting-to-be-crushed.

I have had hopes. But I remember where I was the day the woman I had thought was meant for me revealed within earshot (though she had not told me) that she was dating someone, and I remember where I was when I heard she was engaged, and I remember where it was the day she got married. I have never been one to regard relationships with women lightly, which may be why I have never dated - because I do not want to start something when I have reason to think I would not have the desire to culminate it. So losing a close friendship with someone who really knew me was a great loss. I have had other interests, each disappointment piling up with no successes to keep my interest up.

It is in this mindset that my pastor once encouraged (one may say coerced) me to call a girl I was interested in and invite her to something, in this case a movie night. Despite mountains of fear, I actually did it, though I may I have sounded out of breath as I think my heart had stopped some 5 minutes before. "Why are you calling?" Any flimsy leg I had to stand on broke. I vaguely remember explaining the reason (excuse?) that the pastor had given me to call with, inviting her to the movie night as an "oh, by the way..." The exact worsing of her reply slips through my memory, but I do remember "I'm really busy" being in there somewhere. Come the night of the movie, she must have been far too busy to come out. Hope fails. Cynicism is strengthened.

Insert any romantic cliche you want, it probably aptly describes how I feel when I see her. Lights flashing, heart stopping, incoherence boiling over - that's me. So, naturally, I avert my eyes and walk quickly past when the situation forces me to be around her, and squeeze out the most coherent words I can should actually have to talk to her. Experience has told me that my affection is a bad thing that hurts the people with whom I share it. Faith? Faith deals with other things, and only touches this area of my life in principle. Trying to accept the 'fact' that perhaps the only reason God allows these desires to remain is like Paul's thorn in the flesh - to keep him humble. And I was bound and determined to bow my head in subjection, wandering through life alone, fighting against the strongest desires I have and in direct opposition to the only real dream I have. I want to be married, and to have children. Not an outlandish dream to some, but to me something seemingly so far out of my reach as travel to distant galaxies, almost beyond the realm of even hypothetical thought.

Until tonight.

Why did the sermon affect me? Because of small points that touched real life in a way that high minded theology will not. He gave examples of people living under fear, and mentioned a guy thinking "I could never ask her out." He mentioned his dream of flying in a jet being fufilled - in no stretch of the imagination a spiritual thing. And for the first time in longer than I can remember, I really felt like the message could be divinely lmeant for me.

I made no vow to renounce my shyness, and have as yet taken no action other than to stay where I am, acting as I have been acting. But the memory of hope - not a cruel illusion tormenting me before I lock it away, but light, fresh air, and the gifts of a loving God that cares about our small lives - touched me. Tears silently fell from my eyes as I kept the sound level for the band as they played during the altar call, because such light had not been allowed near my heart; because to entertain the one hope I had has always led to one end: Rejection. And the want of true hope made my heart sick.

I still do not see any reason to think it could or should ever be different, particularly not in this instant, but I was reminded that God does care. And to think that, despite all the reasons to believe the contrary, sometimes outlandish, crazy, unspiritual, foolhardy dreams do come true. Pastors can fly in jets, dead men can live again, the sick can be made well, the lame can walk, the blind can see, prisions can be opened, and maybe, just maybe, a lonely heart can find companionship.